Sure 'nuf, here is the "editorial board" of the Arizona Republic arguing in favor of wage theft from retirees -- keep in mind this is deferred compensation that these employees bargained for in good faith and have earned by performing their end of the bargain. They are entitled to receive payment in exchange for their performance. Reform pensions or lose them:

The Arizona Supreme Court just handed an enormous past-due bill to taxpayers.

The state Legislature’s attempt in 2011 to rein in the costs of poorly performing pension plans is unconstitutional, according to the justices. The Arizona constitution forbids reducing public-pension benefits, which effectively means that no matter how high the costs go, taxpayers simply will have to find a way to pay them.

As a result, the pension board will have to pay out $7.9 million to bring the tab current for beneficiaries of the Elected Officials’ Retirement Plan, a part of the state’s worst performing pension trust, the Public Safety Personnel Retirement System.

The ruling also applies to other beneficiaries of the PSPRS whose benefits were temporarily curtailed. That adds another $32.1 million for retroactive raises. The system will set aside $335.6 million to fund cost-of-living adjustments going forward.

* * *

The 5-0 Supreme Court decision may be perfectly rational and predictable — a constitutionally guaranteed promise made must be kept, after all. But it leaves Arizona taxpayers in a position of disturbing vulnerability, one that begs for a constitutional amendment that will allow lawmakers to make the sorts of changes the justices now say they cannot.

Our lawless legislature has lost yet another case in court, this time over the Elected Officials Retirement Plan (specifically retired judges). This is the second time in recent years that the Arizona Supreme Court has struck down as unconstitutional attempt by Tea-Publicans in the Arizona legislature to reduce benefits to retirees of public employee pension plans. I am sure the editorial board of the Arizona Republic will have a sad over this ruling.

The justices said a voter-approved section of the state constitution makes public pension plans a contractual relationship. More to the point, that provision says benefits “shall not be diminished or impaired.”

Justice Robert Brutinel, writing for the unanimous court said that language applies not just to what retired judges were getting at any one time. He said it also means lawmakers cannot tinker with already existing formulas that determine how much those benefits will increase each year.

Thursday’s ruling puts a damper on efforts by legislators to sharply restrain the obligations of the state to finance existing public pensions. But it does not bar lawmakers from setting new rules for those who have not yet become judges.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a new report on Tuesday on the impacts of raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour and $9 an hour. It found that a $10.10 minimum wage, implemented by 2016, would mean higher earnings for 16.5 million workers, resulting in $31 billion more in higher earnings. It would also lift nearly 1 million people out of poverty.

* * *

“Once the increases and decreases in income for all workers are taken into account, overall real income would rise by $2 billion,” it says. The vast majority of people impacted, over 95 percent, will be impacted positively.

Tea-Publicans want Americans to continue to earn sub-poverty level wages at the hands of exploitative employers, because "Freedom!" (Some Tea-Publicans around the country have even proposed eliminating the minimum wage altogether). I would remind you that failed GOP economic policies have eliminated millions of jobs since 2000.

One of my favorite moments during the 2012 Republican presidential contest came when Ron Paul, fresh from his strong showing in Iowa, triumphantly told his supporters: “We’re all Austrians now!”

* * *

Of course those in the know, particularly Ron Paul’s enthusiasts, understood the libertarian presidential candidate’s reference: that Americans were rejecting the economic ideas of John Maynard Keynes that encouraged government intervention and provided intellectual ballast for the New Deal. Instead, they were coming around to the principles of the anti-government economics of AustriansFriedrich A. Hayek and Ludwig von Mises.

[I]t’s difficult to find a better example of the hardhearted, softheaded nature of today’s G.O.P. than what happened last week, as Senate Republicans once again used the filibuster to block aid to the long-term unemployed.

What do we know about long-term unemployment in America?

First, it’s still at near-record levels. Historically, the long-term unemployed — those out of work for 27 weeks or more — have usually been between 10 and 20 percent of total unemployment. Today the number is 35.8 percent. Yet extended unemployment benefits, which went into effect in 2008, have now been allowed to lapse. As a result, few of the long-term unemployed are receiving any kind of support.

Earlier this year I posted about Rep. John Kavanagh's bill to designate a person a “vexatious litigant’’ and to make it difficult for them to file lawsuits if they initiated at least five unmerited litigations, other than in small claims court, over a period of seven years. HB 2021 (.pdf) (Passed unanimously in the Judiciary Committee with amendment). As I said at the time:

I'm curious -- does this apply to the Arizona Legislature and the Goldwater Institute, which routinely file "vexatious" litigation only to have the court declare that the legislature's actions were unconstitutional and unlawful? Because they clearly qualify as a "vexatious litigant" given the number of lawsuits they have lost over the years (again today). These ideological extremists have been racking up millions of dollars in attorneys fees and court costs at taxpayer expense in pursuit of their ideological agenda. Shouldn't this be stopped?

Tea-Publicans believe that Kavanagh's notion of vexatious litigation "applies to thee, not to me."

The Arizona Daily Star today reports today that the gun worshipers and fetishists want a cause of action to sue any local government official (read the City of Tucson) which enacts "illegal" regulations of firearms in violation of their absolutist view of the Second Amendment.

The good news is, U.S. job growth picked up in January following December’s awful totals. The bad news is, that’s not saying much.

The new report from Bureau of Labor Statistics shows the U.S. economy added 113,000 jobs in January, well below economists’ expectations. The unemployment rate dropped to 6.6% – its lowest point since October 2008 – but that’s cold comfort given the overall data, and is likely affected by congressional Republicans’ decision to cut off jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed.

As is often the case, there was also a sizable gap between the public and private sectors – in January, businesses added 142,000 jobs, while spending cuts forced 29,000 government job losses.

This report, like the one before it, offer yet another reminder to policymakers that the economic recovery is far from robust. For GOP lawmakers on Capitol Hill to forfeit 200,000 jobs this year by failing to extend jobless aid – or worse, threaten deliberate harm through another debt-ceiling crisis – only makes it harder for the economy to get to where it needs to be.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has scheduled a test vote on Thursday to extend long-term unemployment insurance benefits after having rejected Republican requests that they be allowed to propose a number of "poison pill" amendments to the Democratic bill. Reid sets up test vote on jobless aid:

Democrats controlling the Senate have set up a test vote on Thursday for the party’s new plan to extend unemployment benefits for people who have been out of work for more than six months.

The latest plan would extend long-term jobless benefits for three months at a cost of almost $7 billion, paid for by a tweak to pension law that Republicans call a gimmick.

Democrats don’t expect the measure to get enough GOP support to overcome a filibuster threshold of 60 votes. Democrats control the Senate with 55 votes and so far expect just three Republicans to join with them. They are Susan Collins of Maine, Dean Heller of Nevada and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.

I would encourage you to call our senators, but we all know how these two losers will vote. By the way, in a real democracy without the tyranny of the minority engaging in obstruction and filibuster, this bill would have already passed the Senate.

As Craig McDermott posted yesterday, the Senate Government and Environment Committee has on its agenda today SB1094, attacking teachers unions by outlawing third-party payroll deductions for school district employees unless those deductions are each authorized annually.

Progress Now requests your action on this bill:

There is an important hearing on an ALEC today at the Arizona State Senate. The Senate Government and Environment Committee will hear Senate Bill 1094 (school employees; paycheck deductions; authorization) at 2 p.m. today in Senate Hearing Room 3. This "paycheck deception" legislation, which would makes it harder for members of labor organizations to express their free speech rights, has been ALEC model legislation since 1998. You can watch the hearing online here.

Combined, those two stats portend a quickly-exacerbating dystopia. As more and more automated machinery (robots, if you like) are brought in to generate efficiency gains for companies, more and more jobs will be displaced, and more and more income will accumulate higher up the corporate ladder. The inequality gulf will widen as jobs grow permanently scarce—there are only so many service sector jobs to replace manufacturing ones as it is—and the latest wave of automation will hijack not just factory workers but accountants, telemarketers, and real estate agents.

That's according to a 2013 Oxford study The Future of Employment: How Susceptible Are Jobs to Computerisation? (.pdf), which was highlighted in this week's Economist cover story. That study attempted to tally up the number of jobs that were susceptible to automization, and, surprise, a huge number were. Creative and skilled jobs done by humans were the most secure—think pastors, editors, and dentists—but just about any rote task at all is now up for automation. Machinists, typists, even retail jobs, are predicted to disappear.

Almost half of the world’s wealth is now owned by just one percent of the population, and seven out of ten people live in countries where economic inequality has increased in the last 30 years. The World Economic Forum has identified economic inequality as a major risk to human progress, impacting social stability within countries and threatening security on a global scale.

This massive concentration of economic resources in the hands of fewer people presents a real threat to inclusive political and economic systems, and compounds other inequalities – such as those between women and men. Left unchecked, political institutions are undermined and governments overwhelmingly serve the interests of economic elites – to the detriment of ordinary people.

The lives of 300,000 central West Virginia residents were thrown into chaos a week ago when 1000s of gallons of solvent leaked from a storage tank and drained into the scenic Elk River, contaminating the water supply.

Initially, citizens were told to not only stop drinking the water but also to not even shower with it, due to the extreme levels of contamination. As residents left the capitol city of Charleston to find clean water to drink, cook, and bathe, the story of lax environmental oversight of the WV plant unfolded. According to the LA Times, the leaking storage tank owned by Freedom Industries, Inc. had not been inspected since 1999. The latest news is that Freedom Industries filed for bankruptcy on Friday, January 17. (What are the implications for Southern Arizona? Think Rosemont Mine and read on.)

Back in early December, POLITICOTiger Beat on The Potomac reported that "The National Republican Congressional Committee wants to make sure there are no Todd Akin-style gaffes next year, so it’s meeting with top aides of sitting Republicans to teach them what to say — or not to say — on the trail, especially when their boss is running against a woman." GOP men tutored in running against women.

The idea was so comical that Gary Trudeau featured it in his Doonesbury comic strip in December.

Apparenlty the NRCC forgot to school their male members of Congress that they should also not say stupid things in open committee hearings with C-Span cameras rolling.

During a debate over an anti-abortion bill currently advancing in Congress, Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) suggested that Republicans support restricting access to abortion because it will ultimately benefit the economy if women have more children. Goodlatte noted that carrying pregnancies to term “very much promotes job creation.”

This is part of a broader partisan strategy by the GOP wrecking crew to sabotage the economy out of partisanship. They believe that if the economy is still struggling in November -- due largely to GOP austerity economic measures and their failure to pass a single jobs bill since taking over in 2011 -- low information voters will blame the president and his party rather than the Tea-Publican economic terrorists who have been sabotaging the economy at every turn.

That's right, the same assholes who blew up our financial system and economy in 2008 with their faith based supply-side "trickle down" economics and then engaged in unprecedented obstruction, and held the country hostage time and again to their extortionary economic terrorist demands ever since, expect to be rewarded by low information voters for their insurrection against the federal government and economic terrorism against the American people. A classic Stockholm syndrome.

Now the Goldwater Institute "Kochtopus" Death Star wants to extend this fiscally reckless amd irresponsible idea [Tucson public employee pension initiative] to state and local governments in Arizona through a statewide initiative. The Arizona Capitol Times (subscription required) reports, Initiative would tie government spending to pension funding:

A proposed ballot measure would effectively bar state and local governments from increasing spending across the board until its employee pension systems are adequately funded.

[The purposefully deceptively named] Responsible Budgets Act, which was filed with the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office on Friday, would bar political entities with underfunded pension systems from increasing spending, except for inflation and population growth. A provision in the initiative defines “adequately funded” as 80 percent funded.

[I-02-2014 Responsible Budgets in Support of Proposition __ and Petition Serial # ____, full text of initiative: PDF]

I am guessing that the Goldwater Institute "Kochtopus" Death Star is also behind this latest bill attacking the state employee pension system as well, sponsored by its waterboy, Rep. John Kavanagh (R-Fountain Hills). Lawmaker seeks to allow cuts in public pensions:

An Arizona lawmaker wants the state constitution amended to allow cuts to public employee pensions and increases in employee contributions if the systems are badly underfunded.

Republican Rep. John Kavanagh introduced a bill [HCR 2001 (.pdf)] that would refer the proposal to the voters. He said in an interview he is targeting automatic cost-of-living increases but acknowledged nothing in his proposal would prevent cuts to existing pensions.

"If it's Sunday, It's John McCain." The Sunday morning bobbleheads are his base. No one else gives a damn.

The man who could not remember if he owns 8, no wait is it 9, no 10 homes, was on TeaNN (formerly CNN) on Sunday to explain why someone who made his fortune the old-fashioned way -- he married it -- voted against extending long-term unemployment benefits to the unemployed and is opposed to raising the minimum wage: Obama derangement syndrome.

Arizona's angry old man does not feel empathy and compassion for the less fortunate. Screw "Christian values" -- Fuck em! It's all about the sanctity of Senate procedures that only the Beltway media clutches their pearls over.

If Sen. John McCain really wants to help the Republicans with their "messaging" on unemployment benefits and minimum wage, he might want to start by staying off the air.

Here's Grandpa McGrumpy telling CNN's Candy Crowley that the real problem is not their cruel stance on unemployment benefits or raising the minimum wage, it's that they haven't done enough carping about that mean old Harry Reid stopping them from being able to grind the Senate to a halt with poison pills and adding an unlimited number of amendments to bills so they never see the light of day.

OK, so I am a few days late -- I was busy. Get over it. The December jobs report came out last Friday, and it appears to be an outlier that will be adjusted in coming months as more data becomes available. Steve Benen reported, December job totals disappoint:

When it comes to U.S. job creation, the latter half of 2013 looked quite good, and there was ample reason to believe the year would end on a high note, giving the economy some momentum going into the new year.

That didn’t happen, at least according to initial estimates. The new report from Bureau of Labor Statistics shows the U.S. economy added only 74,000 jobs in December, far below economists’ expectations. The unemployment rate dropped to 6.7% – its lowest point since October 2008 – but that appears largely to be the result of people dropping out of the workforce.

Indeed, though the drop in the jobless rate may appear encouraging, this is a pretty dreadful jobs report – 74,000 jobs for December is the lowest monthly total in two and a half years.

Note, however, that this is an initial estimate, which will be revised twice more, and may end up looking far less discouraging than it does right now. Indeed, the revisions from October and November showed an additional 38,000 U.S. jobs that had been previously unreported.

That said, December’s awful numbers are a reminder – to policy makers, to the Fed, to the public – that a robust economic recovery has still not arrived. For congressional Republicans to undermine the economy on purpose by cutting off extended unemployment benefits makes it that much more difficult for the job market to return to where it needs to be.

All told, so far in calendar year 2013, the economy added 2.18 million jobs, while the private sector alone created 2.21 million jobs.

Join the rally today in support of continued contract union/management negotiations at ASARCO. Here are the details from the Pima Area Labor Federation.

The nearly 2000 union members who work in ASARCO’s copper mines, smelters and refineries entered contract negotiations in June 2013. They are spread over five locations and are represented by eight different unions.

On Monday, January 6, 2014 Our Negotiating Committee and ASARCO will begin negotiations after the long holiday break.

Join us as we rally in support of our continuing negotiations and in support of our Negotiating Committee.

Water, snacks, hot cocoa, and shade provided. We have an agenda planned out for the entire rally so bring your family, friends, and dress warm because we will all be out until past 7:00.

If President Barack Obama is a socialist/communist/marxist (pick one) he is really terrible at it. While long-term unemployment in the wake of the Great Recession has not been substantially reduced -- the Bureau of Labor Statistic's U-6 long-term unemployment measure declined from 13.9% in November 2012 to 13.2% in November 2013, thanks largely to the GOP budget sequester and austerity economics -- the investor class, i.e., The Predator Class, has not only recovered from the Great Recession but it was a Champagne year's end for Wall St as stocks set record closing highs:

Stocks closed 2013 at record highs on Tuesday, with the S&P 500 posting its largest annual jump in 16 years and the Dow its biggest gain in 18, after positive reports on consumer confidence and housing boosted sentiment on the final trading day of the year.

"It's been a great year, if you look at it from what the prevailing sentiment was at the beginning of the year, it has surpassed even the most bullish of predictions. It's the type of year you want to savor, there's been a nice wealth effect that has warmed people's portfolios," said Matthew Kaufler, portfolio manager at Federated Investors.

"Between the rise in the markets as well as the rebound in housing prices, this year went a long way in repairing consumer balance sheets," he added.

In November 2006, Arizona voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 202, the minimum wage initiative backed by organized labor. The initiative included a cost of living adjustment (COLA) in subsequent years on each January 1st.

On January 1, 2014, Arizona's minimum wage will increase to $7.80 7.90 per hour. While this is more than the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, it is still well below the earning power adjusted for inflation that the minimum wage would be if it had kept pace with inflation since its peak earning power in 1968. That would require a minimum wage of $10.74 per hour today. Raise The Minimum Wage.

President Obama called for a $9 per hour minimum wage in his State of the Union Address last year. He has since increased that amount to $10.10 per hour, and Senate Democrats have introduced competing bills to raise the minimum wage.

As one year comes to a close and another begins, people often look back at events to reflect and perhaps resolve to improve their lives or change their behaviors in the coming year. In 2013, the Do-Nothing-at-All Congress-- led by the nose by Teapublicans-- continued its war on the poor-- fighting forcuts to food stamps and unemployment and fighting for austerity for the 99%, while disingenuously padding the pockets of their corporate benefactors.

As Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs teaches us, people must satisfy their basic needs before they can become fully self-actualized, before they can reach their full potential. To put this simply, if you don't have food, water, and shelter, your time, energy and resources will be spent obtaining those basic needs. Until you have security and the necessities of life, you will not have the luxury to worry about trifles-- Christmas gifts, video game releases, wine selections, fancy coffee, designer-label clothes, insignificant social snubs, political differences-- in other words, "white people problems".

Congress allowed the stimulus funds for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) aka food stamps to expire on November 1, resulting in a reduction of benefits, while Congress continued to argue over whether to cut food stamps by $4 billion (Senate) or $40 billion (House). The congressional "hunger games" will resume when Congress returns in January.

Since the start of the recession, Congress has extended federal unemployment benefits 11 times. There will not be a 12th before the deadline – emergency aid will expire on Saturday.

The emergency unemployment benefits were instituted by President George W. Bush in 2008 as the financial crisis ramped up and the jobless rate started up toward the 10 percent peak it would hit the following year. Typically, states provide insurance payments to unemployed workers for up to six months.

But as the nation spiraled into recession, and then the recovery struggled to gain traction, the federal government offered repeated extensions, each lasting a period of several months, allowing some people to stay on for 99 weeks. The program has paid out $225 billion in benefits.

The most fascinating political development of 2013 to observe was the rise of the progressive "Moral Mondays" movement in North Carolina in response to the radicalized extremist Tea-Publican controlled state legislature.

"Moral Mondays" engages in civil disobedience protests, organized in part by local religious leaders including William Barber, head of the North Carolina chapter of the NAACP. Members of the protest movement meet every Monday to protest an action by the North Carolina legislature and then enter the legislature building. Once they enter, a number are peacefully arrested each Monday.

The Moral Monday protests that rocked North Carolina (and led to hundreds of arrests each Monday) last year may be coming to Georgia.

A group called Moral Monday Georgia (moralmondayga.org) has quietly begun gathering supporters and planning organizing meetings this month. They plan one of the first actions on the Jan. 13, the first Monday of the session, and the platform focuses on a call to expand Medicaid, restore funding to public schools and raising the minimum wage.

The Moral Monday movement to protest changes in North Carolina public policy that organizers believe are extreme and hurt the state won’t abate in 2014 and will spread to other states, its leader said.

Activists from a dozen states attended a meeting in Raleigh earlier this month to learn how to hold similar protests in their states.

Short version: While generic “government” still polls badly, the notion that government should act to combat inequality is popular, even among independents and moderates — and particularly among core Democratic voter groups.

The new Washington Post/ABC News poll finds that a sizable majority of Americans, 57 percent, believes that “the federal government should pursue policies that try to reduce the gap between wealthy and less well-off Americans.” Only 37 percent oppose.

Only Republicans and conservatives believe government should not act to reduce inequality, but even among them the numbers are surprising. Independents favor government action by 58-37. and moderates favor it by 62-34. Among Republicans the numbers are 40-54, and among conservatives they are 45-48.

Crucially, core Dem subgroups that make up the “Coalition of the Ascendant” overwhelmingly favor combatting inequality. Liberals: 79-17. People under 40: 66-31. Non-whites: 67-23. Women: 59-35. College educated whites: 51-46. This suggests Dem lawmakers and candidates will probably have to make fighting inequality a top priority.

The poll suggests a populist emphasis could help with downscale whites — who are less important to the Dem coalition but should not be given up upon by Dems — since they favor combatting inequality by 55-41.

There’s a nuance in the polling worth noting, one centered on question wording. Republicans hold a 48-40 advantage over Obama on who has the right balance on “government spending,” and the two parties are tied on who is right about the proper “size and role of the federal government.”

But what this really suggests is that “government” and “spending” poll badly, and when you introduce combatting inequality into the mix, suddenly opinion changes. Indeed, though it’s often said Americans reject “class warfare,” individual government policies to fight inequality — higher taxes on the rich, strengthening the safety net, funding for education, infrastructure spending to create jobs, hiking the minimum wage — are broadly popular. Also, as Paul Krugman and Alec MacGillis argue, treating inequality as a central challenge is the right thing to do.

The new Post/ABC News poll also finds that Americans overwhelmingly favor raising the minimum wage, by 66-31. Among independents: 65-34. Among moderates: 71-27 Even Republicans support it by 50-45, and conservatives by 53-34.

Observers keep pointing out that Dems are emphasizing the minimum wage hike to win over non-college whites, and as it turns out, they favor it by an overwhelming 66-32.

As Laura Clawson at Daily Kos notes, the banksters of Wall Street at the corporate Dem front group "Third Way may say that economic populism is a no-good, bad, terrible idea, but the Wall Street influence group isn't in tune with mainstream Democratic voters, or even with independents. Poll: Americans want the government to fight inequality.

Protests against the low wages paid by multinational corporate giants have been sweeping the country, since the Occupy Movement raised the consciousness of the 99%. On Black Friday, Nov. 29, at Walmart stores nationwide and again Thursday, Dec. 5 at McDonald's restaurants nationwide, workers, unionists, progressives, and other liberal activists protested unfairly low wages and barriers to unionization for millions of US workers.

With profits, CEO pay, and wage disparity at all time highs, isn't it time to raise the minimum wage to a living wage?

At McDonald's, approximately 80-100 citizens braved chilly temperatures and intermittent rain to protest low wages. In the days before the local protest, right wing radio host Jon Justice shared PDA Tucson's Facebook announcement about the event and urged his Facebook followers to come to the midtown McDonald's, show their support for the fast food chain, and eat some good food. (Excuse me, but McDonald's hasn't served "good food" in decades-- if ever.) This resulted in a flurry of comments on the PDA page and Justice's page about the "entitlement mentality", people being "paid what they're worth", and the fast food industry being "one key stroke away from 80% automation"-- justifying Arizona's $7.80/hour minimum wage and offering support to McDonald's franchisees who make millions on the backs of workers.

The GOP's alleged boy genius, Ayn Rand fanboy Paul Ryan (R-WI), or as Charles Pierce at Esquire calls him, "the zombie-eyed granny-starver from Wisconsin," is being hailed by his Beltway media villager fan base for his "pragmatic" mini-budget deal with Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), in which the GOP's Flimflam Man pretty much got his way because, after all, Tea-Publicans do control the Congress. As the Washington Post editorialized, A flawed deal, but a done deal:

THERE’S A lot not to like in the budget deal that Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) have struck on behalf of their respective parties and legislative houses. It does basically nothing to resolve the country’s long-term fiscal predicament. It does very little to correct the growing imbalance between discretionary spending and entitlements as a share of the federal budget. And even these modest policy achievements required the use of a budgetary gimmick or two. Yet the deal has one overriding virtue: It exists . . . In short, the agreement’s importance is not fiscal but political: It amounts to a truce in the destructive budgetary wars that have plagued Washington since the advent of a Republican-majority House in 2011.

Well that's setting the bar low. We are supposed to give the "Worst. Congress. Ever." props for doing the one job that they are required to do by the Constitution, pass a budget and appropriate the funds? (This deal is just the budget, Congress is leaving for the rest of the year at the end of this week and will not be back to tackle apropriations until after the new year). Only Beltway media villagers in their insular bubble could could find something to cheer in this deal.

Oh Noes! The Beltway corporate media villagers are clutching their pearls and reaching for their smelling salts today because the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party is fighting back against the corporatist banksters of Wall Street from the Third Way "Democratic" think tank, whom the corporate media villagers always refer to as "centrist" and presume to speak for the Democratic Party. As if.

In a sign of the left’s new aggressiveness, a coalition of liberals is trying to marginalize a centrist Democratic policy group that was responsible for a Wall Street Journal op-ed article this week that said economic populism was “disastrous” for the party.

The coalition, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, and three other liberal advocacy organizations have urged their members to contact a group of congressional Democrats who are honorary leaders of the centrist group, Third Way. It published the op-ed article on Monday contending that the liberalism of Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio of New York City and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts would lead Democrats “over the populist cliff.”

The article — written by Jon Cowan, president of Third Way, and Jim Kessler, its senior vice president for policy — criticizes progressives like Ms. Warren and Mr. de Blasio for opposing measures to cut costs to Social Security and Medicare.

The liberal groups’ campaign has already gotten results, the latest indication that the liberal wing of the Democratic Party is ascendant.

Mark Bergman, a spokesman for Representative Allyson Schwartz, Democrat of Pennsylvania, said she “read the op-ed, thought it was outrageous, disagrees strongly and told Third Way that.” Ms. Schwartz, who is locked in a primary campaign for governor of Pennsylvania, is an honorary chairwoman of Third Way.

The November jobs report is out, and it's all good. Now if Congress can avoid effin' things up again with another government shutdown over a budget that is due December 13. Steve Benen reports, Job growth picks up steam, unemployment drops:

Expectations going into this morning’s new monthly jobs report were fairly strong, and as it turns out, the totals from the Bureau of Labor Statistics were even better than expected.

According to the new BLS report, the U.S. economy added 203,000 jobs in November, ahead of economists’ predictions. In a pleasant change of pace, the public sector did not drag down the overall figures – the private sector added 196,000 jobs, while the public sector, which has hemorrhaged jobs in recent years, added 7,000.

The overall unemployment rate dropped 7%. That’s a five-year low, though it’s a little misleading – it reflects furloughed federal workers who returned to their jobs after the government shutdown ended.

In terms of the revisions, September’s job totals were revised up from 163,000 to 175,000, while October’s figures were revised down slightly, from 204,000 to 200,000. With these revisions, employment gains in September and October combined were 8,000 higher than previously reported.

On Wednesday, President Obama discussed the twin challenges of growing income inequality and shrinking economic mobility and how they pose a fundamental threat to the American Dream. Read the Transcript (excerpt):

[W]e know that people’s frustrations run deeper than these most recent political battles. Their frustration is rooted in their own daily battles -- to make ends meet, to pay for college, buy a home, save for retirement. It’s rooted in the nagging sense that no matter how hard they work, the deck is stacked against them. And it’s rooted in the fear that their kids won’t be better off than they were. They may not follow the constant back-and-forth in Washington or all the policy details, but they experience in a very personal way the relentless, decades-long trend that I want to spend some time talking about today. And that is a dangerous and growing inequality and lack of upward mobility that has jeopardized middle-class America’s basic bargain -- that if you work hard, you have a chance to get ahead.

I believe this is the defining challenge of our time: Making sure our economy works for every working American. It’s why I ran for President. It was at the center of last year’s campaign. It drives everything I do in this office. And I know I’ve raised this issue before, and some will ask why I raise the issue again right now. I do it because the outcomes of the debates we’re having right now -- whether it’s health care, or the budget, or reforming our housing and financial systems -- all these things will have real, practical implications for every American. And I am convinced that the decisions we make on these issues over the next few years will determine whether or not our children will grow up in an America where opportunity is real.

Across the US-- and here in Tucson-- citizens will be standing in solidarity with fast food workers who are demanding a living wage. The Tucson protest is at the McDonalds at Alvernon and Speedway. Here is the flyer . Here is a link to the Facebook event.

Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman writes at the New York Times today, Better Pay Now:

’Tis the season to be jolly — or, at any rate, to spend a lot of time in shopping malls. It is also, traditionally, a time to reflect on the plight of those less fortunate than oneself — for example, the person on the other side of that cash register.

The last few decades have been tough for many American workers, but especially hard on those employed in retail trade — a category that includes both the sales clerks at your local Walmart and the staff at your local McDonald’s. Despite the lingering effects of the financial crisis, America is a much richer country than it was 40 years ago. But the inflation-adjusted wages of nonsupervisory workers in retail trade — who weren’t particularly well paid to begin with — have fallen almost 30 percent since 1973.

So can anything be done to help these workers, many of whom depend on food stamps — if they can get them — to feed their families, and who depend on Medicaid — again, if they can get it — to provide essential health care? Yes. We can preserve and expand food stamps, not slash the program the way Republicans want. We can make health reform work, despite right-wing efforts to undermine the program.

I have previously posted that if the current federal minimum wage of $7.25/hour was inflation adjusted to 1968 dollars, when the minimum wage was at its peak in real value, it would have to be raised to $10.74/hour. Raise The Minimum Wage.

If the minimum wage had grown at the same rate as the earnings of the top one percent of Americans the federal wage floor would be more than triple the current hourly minimum of $7.25. Instead, the minimum wage has been lower than a poverty wage ever since 1982.

The New York Times compiled those and other basic facts about the minimum wage into an infographic. Together with demographic data about who actually holds minimum-wage jobs — less than a quarter of the minimum-wage workforce are teenagers, and nearly four in ten are over the age of 30 — the graphic makes the fundamental case for fighting inequality and economic hardship by raising the minimum wage. The horizontal red line in the Times graphic indicates the hourly wage necessary for a single parent working full-time with one child to avoid poverty:

Under a law Arizona voters approved in 2006, Katherine Castillo and others earning minimum wage will receive a 10-cent-per-hour increase to $7.90 starting Jan. 1. For tipped workers, the state minimum wage will rise from $4.80 to $4.90 per hour.

It will mark the fourth straight year that Arizona has had a higher minimum wage than the federal hourly rate of $7.25, which has remained the same since 2009.

Unfortunately, like all reporting about the minimum wage, the reporter allowed the spokespersons for industries that exploit workers by paying extemely low wages to comment on the minimum wage, without ever challenging their boilerplate talking points:

Rick Murray, CEO of the Arizona Small Business Association, said the law hurts the state’s workforce because it goes against the ideals of a business where wages depend on the demand of a certain skill.

“I’m against the fact that the minimum wage is mandated by the government when it should be market-driven,” he said.

Steve Chucri, president and CEO of the Arizona Restaurant Association, said that raising the minimum wage forces higher operating costs on the food industry can lead to layoffs.

Brad Flahiff, director of development at Barnett Management Co., which operates Burger King franchises in Arizona, said that constantly increasing the minimum wage hurts employees as well as employers.

“It harms the people who are doing better and those who either don’t have those skills yet or are not performing at the same level,” he said. “And yet we are forced to reward them the same way.”

This is, of course, bullshit. What else would you expect from industries that rely on the exploitation of workers?

Tucson is one of the most impoverished cities in the country—for many reasons. The Arizona Legislature—driven by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and short-sighted, “small government” ideology—has routinely swept funds earmarked for counties and cities to "balance" the state’s budget or fund pet projects like lower corporate taxes.

Beyond the Legislature’s negative impact on Baja Arizona, the Tucson economy is not diversified enough. Manufacturing is nearly non-existent in Southern Arizona. There is an over-reliance on defense spending, University of Arizona spin-offs, tourism, low-wage service jobs, and growth/development. During the Great Recession, multiple income streams for our local economy were dramatically reduced or eliminated—resulting in the loss of hundreds, if not thousands of good-paying jobs due to budget cuts, business closures, and the housing market crash. People and jobs left the area.

In August, the Arizona Daily Star ran a week-long series on multiple aspects of poverty in Southern Arizona and just this week, the Star ran a story that stated Tucson was second only to Detroit in the proliferation of crappy, low-wage jobs. In a survey of 52 metro areas with over 1 million residents, Tucson was in the top 10 for job creation; the problem is that more than half of the projected 28,000 new jobs will pay less than $13.84/hour. (If you really want to be depressed, check out the list of Tucson's fastest growing occupations here. None of these jobs requires a college education. Thanks to TREO's efforts, telemarketer is #1. Thanks to Tucson's ample supply of old folks, the next four most popular jobs are low-wage health/caregiver positions. We won't break the cycle of poverty in this city with a jobs picture like this.)

So, we know that our city has big economic challenges. Now what? As I wrote back in August, it's time for some creative economic solutions. It's time to STOP our addiction to military spending. It's time to STOP relying on temporary construction jobs and low-wage hospitality industry jobs. It's time to defund TREO and STOP chasing rainbows by competing with other metro areas for "the next IBM" or the next spring training team. It's time to STOP sending our money to Wall Street for investment. It's time to START investing in Tucson. It's time for public banking. [Read why after the jump.]

Earlier this year I told you about the Virginia-based ballot initiative activist Paul Jacob, and his Liberty Initiative Fund that was behind the City of Tucson public employee pension initiative which failed to qualify for the ballot. As I told you, this right-wing organization was behind a Tea Party group called Cincinnati for Pension Reform, which did qualify this model pension initiative for the ballot in Cincinnati in November. Tucson and Cincinnati confront the same model pension initiative (Prop. 201).

Peter McLinden, Cincinnati-area Regional Director at AFSCME Ohio Council 8, released this statement:

"Today's
vote will be heard beyond Cincinnati and sends a message for those on
the ideological extremes who think it is ok to impose their agenda on an
entire city. Had this passed, outside money and political extremists
would have cost Cincinnati taxpayers more money, with less services.
... That said we all are dedicated to working together moving forward
to fix the pension system in a way that is in the best interest of
Cincinnati public employees and taxpayers."

Congress still has not passed a "farm bill" with funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) aka food stamps. The expiration of the 2009 federal stimulus on November 1 meant a five percent cut in food stamp assistance to the poor. The New York Times reports today, Cut in Food Stamps Forces Hard Choices on Poor:

For many, a $10 or $20 cut in the monthly food budget would be absorbed with little notice.

But for millions of poor Americans who rely on food stamps, reductions that began this month present awful choices. One gallon of milk for the kids instead of two. No fresh broccoli for dinner or snacks to take to school. Weeks of grits and margarine for breakfast.

And for many, it will mean turning to a food pantry or a soup kitchen by the middle of the month.

“I don’t need a whole lot to eat,” said Leon Simmons, 63, who spends more than half of his monthly $832 Social Security income to rent a room in an East Charleston house. “But this month I know I’m not going to buy any meats.”

Mr. Simmons’s allotment from the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly called food stamps, has dropped $9. He has already spent the $33 he received for November.

The reduction in benefits has affected more than 47 million people like Mr. Simmons. It is the largest wholesale cut in the program since Congress passed the first Food Stamps Act in 1964 and touches about one in every seven Americans.

From the country kitchens of the South to the bodegas of New York, the pain is already being felt.

If the current federal minimum wage of $7.25/hour was inflation adjusted to 1968 dollars, when the minimum wage was at its peak in real value, it would have to be raised to $10.74/hour. Raise The Minimum Wage.

If you think this seems "high," the Economics Policy Institute in its report The Unfinished March found that "After adjusting for inflation, the minimum wage today—$7.25—is worth $2.00 less than in 1968, and is nowhere close to a living wage. In 2011, a full-time year-round worker needed to earn $11.06 an hour to keep a family of four out of poverty." This amount would be somewhat higher today.

Tip Jar

Mo Udall says, "I have learned the difference between a cactus and a caucus. On a cactus, the pricks are on the outside." Donate to BlogForArizona to help us keep an eye on the pricks inside the GOP caucuses controlling Arizona's politics. Or you could buy some of our keen swag."
Please consider making a monthly pledge:

Things We Love

Fair Use Info

Please link to this site. Deep linking as well as landing page links are encouraged and appreciated. Here are site graphics you can use for graphic links.

BforAZ Merchandise:

Purchase of goods via or donations to this site do not constitute a donation to any political candidate or party and are not tax deductible. This site is run by volunteers and is not authorized by any political campaign, party, or PAC.

Opinions expressed are solely those of the authors and do not reflect the opinions or positions of any other organization, entity, or officials.